Digital Marketing is continually evolving and this may seem unsettling at times. Strategies that were working in past, might not be effective in the present. Do you know why many businesses fail to get ahead of their competitors? It’s simply because they are not willing to adapt to the ever-changing world of digital media. But, the great thing about a digital marketing strategy is that you can change them on the fly in response to real-time results and analytics data. While this may seem tricky as if you change things too quickly, you may not be able to find if your strategy worked for long-term. But if you wait for a long time, you are likely to waste your two valuable resources: time and money.

With that said, how do you know when its the right time to change your Digital Marketing strategy? To help you keep up with the fast-paced industry, I’ve created this post to help you know when to change your digital marketing strategy.

Below are the 5 signs to help you decide when to quit your existing strategy.

1. Focusing on low-value metrics

If you’re concentrating on low-value metrics like impressions and clicks, you may be missing out because impressions and clicks only let you know about your marketing visibility. And not the real accuracy of your strategies.

2. Only focusing on your brand not on audience needs

Every marketer wants to spread their brand name but you should not overdo by pasting your brand name all over everything. In fact, make your content educational that focus on your audience problems and needs. This would really help you in targeting buyers in initial stages of the buyer’s journey.

3. Over usage of keywords

Although, it’s required to place keywords in your content, Google’s priority always lies in providing reach user experience and relevancy of content. Google has nothing to do with how many times your site shows the keyword like “Digital Marketing Strategy.”

4. Don’t rely on your instinct

Your prior experience is certainly precious. But your decision-making process should not be only based on what worked in the past. It’s a really bad idea as what worked tomorrow may be completely irrelevant today. Therefore guiding your marketing strategy through objective data will only get you better results.

5. Not integrated

Whether it’s about veteran digital marketer, sitting in IT or a start-up company, it’s too common for digital marketing strategies to be finished in silos. It is an easier way but of course, it’s not effective. It’s true that digital approach works best when it’s integrated with traditional channels.

Now you know that if you need to change your digital marketing strategy or not, here is a complete guide to help you build a new, powerful marketing strategy to achieve your online goals.

What are the essential steps for creating an effective digital marketing strategy?

Integrate different marketing strategies and use only the correct tools

If you don’t have the required skills set, don’t hesitate to purchase special services

Identify your online value proposition and apply it across all digital marketing channels

Last but definitely not the least, prepare yourself

But before you do something ask yourself few questions. Asking yourself right questions and having their answers in place will certainly help you make the right decisions. I’ve given some Q’s & A’s below to help you out.

Which digital channels are most effective for you and why?

With so many digital channels around, it gets difficult to choose the best one. So you can identify it with these simple basics:

Identify the channel where most of your potential customers like to hang out

Analyze your target audience behavior

Build awareness with Twitter

Attend industry events and conferences

Social media and newsletters to reach out to your potential customers

SEO or combination of SEO and PPC to help you attract more visitors

How to evaluate your digital marketing activities?

Unfortunately, some companies don’t know how to answer this question correctly. If you’re also one of them, don’t feel embarrassed! Just hop on and find out how can you determine the right metrics and evaluate your current digital marketing activities.

Identify your target KPI (Key Performance Indicator) to help you understand what’s working

Survey your site visitors to find if they’re satisfied with your solutions

Track ROI, conversions, market share, and sales

How to make your business stand out from the crowd?

In today’s competitive digital market it’s really difficult to make your business stand out from your competitors. But an effective strategy can help you stay ahead of them. Let’s see how.

Effectively communicate and educate your customers

Stay honest and transparent to build customer’s loyalty

Talk less, listen more

Be authoritative and helpful in what you do

Know your competitors and learn from them

Be creative, open-minded, and try new technologies

Speak in your audience language

Use proof points and testimonials to show you’re the best

Final Thoughts

As the world of online landscape changes, so should your digital marketing strategy. So it’s essential to stay aware of the changing market and the new advancements in technology to help you grow furthermore.

Marketing, as an entity, has been around for a very long time. However, the approaches to marketing have not changed but they have been enhanced by the addition of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing, unlike traditional marketing, allows your clients and prospective clients to come to you as opposed to you having to go after your clients and prospective clients in traditional marketing.

People are clever
In the past, as a marketer, you would have spent a great deal of money on marketing your brand. The payback for that was that your target audience actually paid attention to your marketing materials. However, eventually, people became more sophisticated and found ways to block your marketing efforts. If you bought ads in newspapers, magazines, etc., the other person could simply not read it. If you bought ads on TV, they could change the channel. If you advertised over the phone, the other person could just hang up.

Inbound marketing is a great new approach to marketing
Eventually, inbound marketing was born. Not only is inbound marketing a different approach but it also allows you greater possibilities of succeeding because not only does your client or prospect come to you but that person has chosen to do so willingly. That means that the person is prequalified and he or she would be more than willing to connect with you. The challenges that you always faced in the past when it came to marketing results are less challenging because of inbound marketing. They get to decide if and when they go with you.

How does inbound marketing work?
As was stated previously, inbound marketing only works if the other person opts into what you want them to do. At the very least, that will be basic contact information. In some cases, it will be more than that. However, it is not as simple as the person becoming aware of your existence online and then immediately deciding to connect with you and to cultivate a relationship.

With inbound marketing, it takes time to build the relationship and to trust each other and for your to become credible in the other person’s eyes. It is important that you understand that even though it may feel like a slow process to you, it is actually an extremely effective process and will worth exploring. Inbound marketing works effectively for many different businesses.

The way that it works is that you consistently post top-quality, educational, valuable content and the other person gets to know you and your business through your content. At some point in the near future, that person will want to deepen the connection that he or she has with you and you will begin to interact with each other. With any luck, you start to do that regularly. Before you know it, you have built a solid, meaningful, mutually beneficial relationship that will exist for a very long time.

At this point, you may be wondering how to get started using a strategy that includes inbound marketing.

Establish your content marketing strategy: Content is king! That cannot be emphasized enough. Before you do any writing at all, you need to establish your content strategy. It is that strategy (or roadmap) that will keep your content flowing and will hopefully help you to avoid any roadblocks in the way of your writing productivity. Your strategy should contain detailed information about your target audience members, including their wants and needs. Those details will guide you to customize your writing appropriately. Your first objective is to solve the other person’s problem(s). You need to write content that resonates with the other person and that helps you to establish an emotional connection.

Build your communities: Assuming that you have created a strong repository of top-quality content, the next thing that you will need to ensure is that your online social communities are in order. The reason for that is so that you have places to share your content. Of course, that means that wherever you post your content, it will elicit positive results. It is recommended that you choose quality over quantity when it comes to your online social connections. However, you should still have a significant number of connections. You should present your content in ways that appeal to your target audience, including words on relevant, compelling topics, graphics, videos, etc.

Leverage forms: Once you have gotten the attention of prospects, you will want to deepen the connection. A great vehicle for that is to use a form. You will want to encourage your online connections to complete a form with contact information and other pieces of valuable information that you need. The way that you can accomplish that is by providing a link to your landing page that contains a form (or a link to a form). The landing page will provide additional content that your prospects will find useful.

Grow your relationships: Relationships need tender loving care. That is true of personal as well as professional relationships. If you want to make the relationship solid and enduring, you will need to put forth some effort to make that happen. It is not necessarily correct to assume that the minute you connect with the other person, you will become besties! It takes time and effort to develop true relationships. In many cases, the more effort you put into the relationship, the stronger that relationship will become. Always remember that your first objective is to solve the other person’s problem(s). If you can satisfy his or her needs, yours will be met as well.

Conclusion
Inbound marketing is an extremely effective approach in business. Inbound marketing provides you with the opportunity to establish solid, meaningful, enduring relationships. Those relationships will benefit everyone involved. Your online connections exist for you because they want to, not because they have to. Your business will potentially grow at an increased rate and the relationships that you establish will last.